Will of the Winchesters
by fmapreshwab
Summary: Written as a missing episode from early season 4. Sam and Dean investigate a series of violent attacks in a small town. While they work, their trust issues come to an explosive head. One of the boys will have his deepest secret exposed. Rated for language and content.
1. Heavenly Errand Boy

Notes: I don't own the Supernatural property, or any of the characters, etc. This is, however, my plot-type deal. This is my first Supernatural story, but I'm going through such a phase right now, so there will probably be more to follow. This is my first step out of the gate since hitting a two-year hibernation, so here goes. It's basically meant as a missing episode during the season 4 "save the seals" plot arc. Have fun.

* * *

The young man walked quickly toward the library, eager to finish the chore. He was wearing a thick coat to shield himself from the cold. It was a dull, cloudy day that promised storms sometime soon.

After stopping at the front desk to ask the librarian a quick question, he headed toward the back of the building. Soon he was surrounded by shelves, piles with row on row of books. He had stopped to check the information on the small note card in his hand when the lights went out.

At first, he stood still, waiting for the lights to come back, the generator to kick in, whatever it was that should happen in these situation. But nothing did. He was beginning to feel his way between the shelves when he saw a dim blue light reflecting off one of the carts in a nearby corner.

"Hello?" He called out, moving toward the light.

"Andy?" A voice called back from the darkness.

"Heather?" Andy called back, beginning to move toward the voice.

The scream came just before the lights flickered back on. More familiar with the surroundings, the librarian had been moving between the shelves, assuring everyone that someone was working to fix the lights. With the clouds hanging low and dark outside, it had been black as pitch within the building.

The librarian turned now to the small study rooms toward the back of the library, from which the scream seemed to still be coming.

Rounding the corner, the librarian began to scream as well at the sight.

Andy stood over another young man, a bloody pencil in his hand. The other man lay on the floor, bleeding freely from the hole in his neck, while the girl behind him, blood across her blouse and neck, screamed uncontrolably.

* * *

As the engine of the Impala roared hungrily, Dean smiled to himself. These are the magic hours, he told himself as he looked over at Sammy. The full moon was reflecting off the waxed hood so bright, Dean could see the country for what seemed like miles around. His tunes had been dulled to a mild roar when Sam had announced that he was calling it quits for the night. He sat now in the passenger seat, head leaving all kinds of marks on the window, his open mouth from time to time releasing a graceless snort.

Leaning back into his seat to roll the tension out of his shoulders, Dean was everything on a very long list except for, of course, tired, so he would drive through the night. Sam had objected at first, but there was no way Dean was getting any sleep in the state he was in, and he refused to stare at a motel ceiling for the next eight hours. Dean didn't quite want to admit it to himself, but he was, among other things, too damned excited to sleep.

That afternoon they'd turned north to hit Bobby's place, agreeing (for once, Dean thought as he tossed a look in the direction of Sam's sleeping form) that their best course of action right now was to get all their heads in the same room and find a way to go on the offensive. Running around putting out fires, Bobby had reasoned, ain't gonna stop armageddon. We gotta get out in fronta this thing.

Circumstances aside, it was nice to be heading somewhere familiar, somewhere simple. Dean was looking forward to a chance to recharge, to let his guard down, and every bit of it felt so wrong that he couldn't stand it. There had been some changes Dean had had to get used to since returning from Hell, and he was still adjusting to being the man who had come back.

Dean looked over at Sammy, asleep and drooling, and felt an emptiness in his soul. It was like coming back had changed everything, and Dean wasn't sure it was for the better. Sometimes, in the dark of the nights, Dean found himself wishing he had never been brought back, but those thoughts always brought the memories, no matter how hard he tried to block them out.

Dean shook his head, trying to focus on the road and not the cacophony of uncertainty that seemed to be the only thing on his mind bent forward and turned the radio up to drown out the seeping pus of his mental wounds.

Dean's fingers had just brushed the volume knob when he became aware that something was...wrong, different. He caught the reflection of the moon off something in the back seat of the car and straightened to check the rearview mirror. His emergency .45 was already cocked by the time Dean recognized Castiel sitting in the back of his car. He took a deep, steadying, and slightly peeved breath and put the gun back in its place beneath his seat.

"So, what," Dean asked, "did I drift off at the wheel?"

Castiel didn't smile. "This is no dream, Dean."

"So you're really here?" Dean asked with an air of snide wonder. "That means big fish."

"Maybe," Castiel allowed, inclining his head slightly.

"Maybe? I don't get out of bed for maybe," Dean said, turning his attention back to the road.

"You get out of bed when I tell you to, Dean. I don't like to remind you what I'll have to do if you don't cooperate."

The stillness of Castiel's voice gave Dean an uneasy feeling. It made him think the angel might not be bluffing, and going back to Hell was not an option.

"What's up?" Dean asked, as steadily as he could manage. It wouldn't do to let Cas think he had the upper hand here. "You have a job for us or don't you?"

"There have been some...troubling occurrences that we would like you to look in to."

Castiel's furrowed brow staring back at him from the mirror almost answered the question before he asked it, but Dean went in for the confirmation all the same. "Is it a seal?"

Castiel waited a moment before answering. "Some of us believe so. That is the most I can tell you right now."

Dean had had enough. Turning his head from the forgotten road, he wheeled to face the back seat. Keeping his voice down for Sam's benefit, Dean began to ream the angel. "You know, I'm getting really sick of all these stupid-". He let the thought go unfinished as he realized that he was yelling at an empty seat, and that he and Sam were alone once more in the car.

Hallucinations were an explanation Dean actually entertained for a moment, until he noticed the newspaper clipping laying in the spot where Castiel had sat, curled into the indentation that had been left behind by the angel's meat costume.

Dean reached down once more for the volume control on the Impala's radio. As AC/DC started in with the canons, Sam jerked upright, and Dean had the grace to feel a flash of guilt as his brother glowered over at him. Dean kept his eyes trained on the road, but he was watching Sammy in his periphery as an increasingly familiar look clouded his brother's features. Dean couldn't quite read the look that had so often been popping up when Sam looked at him lately, and that worried him. Nobody in the world knew Sam better than Dean, and he wasn't used to dealing with such striking unknowns.

It was quiet for a long moment in the cab of the Impala, but neither expected it to last long. Eyeing his brother, Dean grinned. "Dude, sweet dreams?"

Sam looked confused for a moment, then turned a deep, embarrassed pink in the glowing moonlight as he shifted awkwardly in his seat to cross his legs. Dean laughed, and the deep, hearty sound filled the still air of the car. After a short moment of glaring daggers, Sam couldn't help but join in.

"So, hey, Sam, how do you feel about a detour?"

* * *

Notes: I'm trying to write this with the style and pacing of an episode, so there's your tease. Cue up the theme music, Act 1 to follow.


	2. A Librarian's Temper

Notes: I don't own the Supernatural property, or any of the characters, etc. This is, however, my plot-type deal. This is a new style for me, so feedback is appreciated.

* * *

Sam threw the large, misshapen duffel bag onto the dusty bed of the motel room, turning to sit next to it with a similar thud. "When you said detour, I thought we'd at least stay with a couple of states of Bobby's. Why are we in Indiana, Dean?"

Dean ran a hand through his hair. Sam had been on his ass since he had brought up the job. He hated to think how much more of a pain his brother would be if he knew who had given them the tip. "Look, you read the article. Attempted murder at this library, three assaults in the same spot so far this month. Go back another month, and how many did you find?"

"Six, but that's not what I mean. That article didn't come from nowhere, and you didn't get that local paper clipping from a truck stop in Iowa. And, in case you hadn't noticed, we were kind of in the middle of a bigger hunt. Lilith, the seals, remember all that? We should be helping Bobby get a handle on this thing, but instead we're out here, doing...what, exactly? What's going on here, Dean?"

Dean could tell from the set of Sam's shoulders, the tension in his jaw, that he couldn't get out of this without giving him some kind of answer. But the truth was something Sam wasn't ready to handle yet. "Look, Sammy, all I can tell you is that this might have something to do with keeping a seal sealed. That's all I know."

Somehow, his brother found the answer less than satisfying. Grunting as he straightened from the bed, Sam stalked out of the room, the door closing firmly behind him. Dean sighed, knowing that there had been no right way to answer Sam's questions. He usually trusted Sam's judgement, and keeping him in the dark like this was galling.

Dean followed Sam out to the car to grab the rest of their gear. "Look," Dean began, using what he hoped was a reasonable tone, although it always seemed to sound sarcastic to his own ears, "when I said detour, I meant detour. We're not giving up on the fight, we're just bringing it to some demon bastard who's been playing dress-up and attacking kids in a high school library. Come on, it'll be fun to get our hands on something we can kill for a change." Dean didn't have to be facing Sam to hear him rolling his eyes. Dean slammed the trunk, startling his brother, who was still leaning into the back seat. "What the hell, Sam? I don't usually have to talk you into helping people. You've been letting that demon bitch rub off on you." This last he said only just loud enough to be heard as he carried the weapons into the motel room.

Sam was ready for a fight when he stepped back through the door into their small, garishly wallpapered motel room, but Dean cut him off. "Look, we both want to be back on the road to Bobby's, let's just get this done and go, huh?"

Sam was quiet for a moment, glaring down at Dean, but finally he broke. "Okay, how do you want to do this?"

* * *

The next morning, the brothers stood casually in an office, milling aimlessly. The thick clouds outside the window cast the room in a strange shadow, and the air smelled of rain. The boys were waiting silently, all too aware of the secretary casting them surreptitious glances over her computer monitor. Sam stood near the secretary's desk, neat suit and bowtie screaming "former mathlete" at the top of their little fabric lungs. Dean was studying a trophy case, wearing the casual uniform of a workman. They had entered a few minutes apart, Sam having walked from the corner, to keep anyone from drawing any conclusions. They wouldn't want anyone to know they knew one another, after all.

The small, balding man walked out into the reception office with an air of tired importance. Look who gets to play warden, Dean thought snidely, taking the man in as a whole in an instant. The principal was a small, angry man who took pleasure in crushing any of the joy kids like Dean found in high school. Dean's mind wandered back to the detention halls of the past as Sam introduced himself.

"You must be Mr. Carmichael," Sam said with a feigned enthusiasm, looking with wide eyes out from the wide glasses he had chosen to complete his outfit. "I'm George Peterson, you're substitute librarian." Sam shifted the briefcase he carried from one hand to the other to shake the man's hand.

"We're glad to have you," Carmichael said in a nasal voice. "Our regular librarian had something of a...she's on a leave of absence, something of short notice. We didn't know what we were going to do. And you are…?" he asked, turning to face Dean.

Falling out of his reverie with what he was sure was a visible snap, Dean smiled, reaching out to shake the man's hand in turn. "Um, I'm Hank. I answered the ad for the clean up job." He dipped his hand into his pocket, pulling out the selected card for the occasion. "The ad said I had to be certified to clean bodily fluids."

The small man blanched. "Oh, yes, well, come along then, the both of you. I'm afraid you're headed the same way. You both may as well know now, there was something of an incident in the library Monday." They passed through a set of double doors and out into the open air, an oppressive heavy wetness penetrating their bones. "The whole building was closed off all yesterday as a damned crime scene. Oh," the principal gasped, "I'm terribly sorry, that was unprofessional of me."

Sam and Dean, flanking Carmichael, shared a brief look. Sam was the first to speak. "I had heard there was some kind of attack."

Carmichael sighed, looking deflated. "There was an incident. That's all either of you really needs to know, but…. I suppose you're going to find out anyway. One of our students was stabbed in the neck by a classmate."

"One of your students snuck in a knife?" Dean asked, trying to fill in the blanks the newspaper article had left for them.

"Oh, god no. He used a pencil. Can you imagine? The boy he stabbed lived, and he's in the hospital now, but they're not sure he'll make it." The older man shook his head sadly.

Sam's brow drew together in concern as he caught Carmichael's eye. "Why would anyone do that?"

"Well, this is completely unofficial, but I understand it was about a girl. I swear, the things these kids will do when the hormones take over, I just don't understand it. You know, George," he continued, looking over at Sam, "that's actually what happened to our usual librarian, Beatrice. She found them right after it happened, and she hasn't talked to anyone since. I don't blame her, poor thing, the blood was everywhere."

Dean smiled at Sam over the man's head. The principal was easily in his fifties, but he gossiped like a sixteen year old girl.

As they approached the library, an old building set at the rear of the campus, Dean hefted the kit he had brought from one shoulder to the other. "So I guess that's what I'll be doing," he muttered.

"I'm sorry?" Carmichael asked, turning.

Dean flashed the old man a dazzling, eat shit grin. "I was just wondering, with this kind of stain, what I'm going to be dealing with. Has anyone said anything about smelling something like rotten eggs around where it happened? Maybe some of the blood is more black than red, like an ooze?"

The old man looked dubiously up at Dean. "What experience did you say you had with situations like this? There's none of that, nothing strange about it, just very sad."

Sam and Dean each opened one of the double doors and entered the library, the principal trailing just behind them. Sam caught Dean's eye, shaking his head. Sam hadn't been sold on this case in the first place, and Dean didn't want to think about what he was going to have to put up with if it turned out this was just a case of random teenage violence. But as they approached the library desk, the lights went out, leaving the trio in complete darkness.

"Oh," Carmichael said into the darkness, "that's the other thing. We've had workmen in here on and off for a few weeks now, but they can't figure out why the lights keep going out like that. It never lasts very long, but I know that doesn't make it any less convenient."

As the lights came back, Sam and Dean's eyes locked. Dean was pleased to note that Sam no longer looked skeptical.

* * *

Dean stood in the small room, absorbing the scene before he set to work. The blood was everywhere. The room looked like the aftermath of a bad horror movie. Though it had since dried, when Dean looked at the spots on the ceiling and the pools on the floor, all he could hear were the sickening drips and drops, and the odd squelch if the shoe prints were anything to judge by.

The sight, or the memories the sight conjured, made Dean uneasy. He hadn't yet exactly gotten used to carrying the burden of the last 40 years, and the more he tried to suppress the part of his brain where they lived, the more he could feel something deep within him squirming, rattling the chains that held it back. Dean shook his head, casting aside whatever heebie jeebies the room inspired to do the damn job.

It wasn't hard to fight the pull of the memories, not now. Dean knew exactly what he'd find when he pulled back the curtain, and he had no intention of walking back into the waking nightmare. But later, when he was eventually forced to sleep, that's when he knew it would all come pouring back, unopposed. He had taken, over the past few weeks, to sleeping as much as he could when Sam wasn't around.

When he closed his eyes and slipped away from this world and fully into the world inside his head, Dean always found himself in that first moment, the fear and confusion fighting to choke him as he called out for someone, anyone to help. As he called out for Sam. More than once, he'd woken to find that Sam had answered the call, standing over him in the dark of the night, concern carved deep into the lines of what should have been a youthful face.

Dean knew what supporting him like that would do to Sam if he let it go on much longer. It was the same thing that had happened to him the day their father had started leaving them alone. Sammy had been so young, and Dean had to become the protector. But now, ever since he had come back, he felt the way he had that first time John had thrown him the motel keys and told him never to answer the door, the first time Sam had asked him what they were going to eat for dinner. He was a child again, filling a man's shoes. The fact that the shoes were now his own only made Dean feel small.

* * *

The lights were flickering again when Dean found himself focusing once more on the room. That someone had survived the attack that had gone on here seemed only just short of a miracle. Dean grimaced. He didn't much care for the influence Castiel and his buddies had been having over his thoughts lately, but remembering the alternative was usually enough for him to stop grousing and shake it off. The lights were dimming again when Dean heard footsteps behind him.

Turning nonchalantly to the doorframe, Dean saw Sam pushing a cart loaded with haphazard piles of books. Throwing his brother a quick nod, Dean turned back to where he had dropped his bag, pulling out his EMF scanner.

"I'm not stupid, Dean," Sam groused near the door, his eyes focused on the task of picking books out one at a time to shelve.

"Good update, Sammy. Me either. Check back in an hour?" Dean was frowning at the scanner. As proud as he was of the homemade device, he had to admit it might be starting to show its age. It wasn't registering any EMF in the area, which didn't really make sense. With no sulfur residue-

"I know we're here because Castiel snapped his fingers. Why else would you be keeping this from me? What I don't get is why you go barking every time. Just because Castiel treats you like his lap dog doesn't mean you have to act the part, Dean! We don't even know that this job is worth the time it took us to get here. We should be at Bobby's-"

The lights began to flicker, and Dean glanced back down at his EMF gauge. Nothing. He smacked the outer casing against the flat of his palm, to no effect. He frowned, wondering if he had another cassette player he could sacrifice to the cause, generally ignoring Sam's little hissy fit. Dean had known Sam wouldn't sit quietly without a better explanation. He hadn't expected his brother would be quite so angry, but there was not accounting for Sammy sometimes.

A bell rang in the distance, toward the front of the library. Sam opened his mouth to continue, but the bell rang again, more forcefully, and then insistently.

"Just a minute!" Sam called, an edge to his voice. He glared back at Dean, a fire in his eyes that Dean had been seeing more and more often lately. "This isn't over," Sam said sternly, pointing in Dean's direction.

"You know where to find me," Dean muttered, rolling his eyes as he turned back to his work.

* * *

Dean sat back on his haunches in the corner of the room. After an hour of finding nothing out of the ordinary, he'd begun actually cleaning the mess in the small study room, and it had taken some of the fight out of him. As he worked, he'd gone over the list in his head, but so far nothing he could come up with made any sense.

The EMF reader had shown no sign of spirit activity, there was nothing to indicate that a demon had been in the area recently, and by every account all the people who had been arrested for violent actions on the premises over the last couple of months had taken complete responsibility for their actions. Dean didn't have to catch all the glares Sam had been sending him throughout the morning to know that his partner still wasn't convinced anything other than bad judgement and hormones was taking place at the school.

Sam stalked into the room, closing the door behind him. With the only immediate route out of the room closed off, the walls seemed to come together. Dean could feel the anger pouring off Sam in the small space, washing up against him like the waves of the incoming tide.

"What'd you find?" Dean asked in a steady voice, trying not to acknowledge Sam's obvious frustration.

Sam sighed, tense and impatient. "I found plenty of witnesses who didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I found friends of the attackers, most of whom say that the people getting arrested around here had a lot of anger issues, and that this was pretty much everyday life. I found a whole lot of nothing, Dean, and I think it's time we talk about why we're here."

* * *

Aaaaaaaaaaaand...commercial break.


End file.
